Now What (Double Thump)

[Matt Till]

Uh, when I was introduced to this craziness, I was blown away. I tried it out, I watched Wooten thump and tried to make my thumb do what his thumb was doing (not as fast... just the jist of it ). But I couldn't. But after messing with it off and on... I was practicing last night, and I "accidentally" started doing it.

So what now, I've got the general technique down. (I didn't want to bother going any further until I got this far... duh) What's the next step. I want to be able to use this in a musical concept, I don't really want to shred. I just would like to add another tool in the ol' belt. I'm trying to do the open hammer pluck thing or whatever... any other advice?

I know it's been covered, but not tailored to my specific... suit jacket?

[Adam Barkley]

Originally Posted by Matt Till

Uh, when I was introduced to this craziness, I was blown away. I tried it out, I watched Wooten thump and tried to make my thumb do what his thumb was doing (not as fast... just the jist of it ). But I couldn't. But after messing with it off and on... I was practicing last night, and I "accidentally" started doing it.

So what now, I've got the general technique down. (I didn't want to bother going any further until I got this far... duh) What's the next step. I want to be able to use this in a musical concept, I don't really want to shred. I just would like to add another tool in the ol' belt. I'm trying to do the open hammer pluck thing or whatever... any other advice?

I know it's been covered, but not tailored to my specific... suit jacket?

Granted I am the wrong person to give a suggestion, as I rarely slap and when I do I am more of an old school slapper (groovy and not cluttered with fifty million dead notes wrapped around two actual notes). But I can double thump a little.

I think of it like punctuation. I prefer to use double thumping as an embellishment, to end (or begin) a musical "sentence" and add interest. But if you fill up a sentence with a million commas then your sentence will be disjointed and hard to understand.

As far as Wootenesque flights of fancy, you are in the right about refraining from that. 90% of the time anyone who plays in that style sounds just like him and not themselves.

[bassjus]

Good post abark, I definantly agree.

What I also suggest you work on is slapping and popping the same string, it's a lot harder than you think it would be, but defiantly helps in the long run.

[Christopher]

Originally Posted by bassjus

Good post abark, I definantly agree.

What I also suggest you work on is slapping and popping the same string, it's a lot harder than you think it would be, but defiantly helps in the long run.

Ditto. Also try playing things that you normally play using standard alternating fingers using just up and downstrokes with your thumb.

I think getting good dexterity with the thumb alone and getting the upstrokes to sound like the downstrokes is the key to making this technique musically useful.

If you practice grouped note patterns like open-hammer-pluck or up-down-pluck etc., you'll just wind up playing those patterns over and over. (Well, that's what I've gone and done anyway.)

[Mike Flynn]

Originally Posted by abark000

Granted I am the wrong person to give a suggestion, as I rarely slap and when I do I am more of an old school slapper (groovy and not cluttered with fifty million dead notes wrapped around two actual notes). But I can double thump a little.

I think of it like punctuation. I prefer to use double thumping as an embellishment, to end (or begin) a musical "sentence" and add interest. But if you fill up a sentence with a million commas then your sentence will be disjointed and hard to understand.

As far as Wootenesque flights of fancy, you are in the right about refraining from that. 90% of the time anyone who plays in that style sounds just like him and not themselves.

Great stuff Abark - I find myself using it in exxactly this way when I play with other musicians - the trouble is that it's such a busy way of playing that you really have to slim down how you use it from a 'Me & My Bass Guitar' type groove to half that intensity. I use the open-hammer-pluck and double thumbing stuff for solo bass ideas - especially playing chords and bass line together - but that's about its only application - I think it's so true to say that when ou do it you end up sounding like Vic - it's like when people play fretless they have a tendency (not always) to sound like Jaco. To avoid this it then comes down to the notes you play. I've been working on some grooves of my own that mix up the various slap techniques but the irony is that I find myself using a more Marcus Miller approach becuase it just sounds better in a band setting. DT-ing is great for solo stuff - I'm sure you might have seen this before but here's a vid of some of my ideas - but again - it's so hard not to sound like Wooten when you do this - that's not necessarily a bad thing - but it's kind of inevitable.

My silly vid:

http://www.munkio.com/music/Victor/Silly%20Slap.mov

M

PS If you haven't heard it yet - the opening tune on the new Manring CD called 'Helios' is pretty wicked - and he's DT-ing in his own way.

[Panther]

This is one technique I'm dying to get a look at, and my Victor Wooten Live at Bass DAy 98 just came in in the mail at the office, so I have to stare at it all day until I can get home to check it out!

[metalguy2]

I can never watch any of that guys videos and actually get anything from it but amazement.. I cannot understand what he is actually doing

[burntgorilla]

Originally Posted by metalguy2

I can never watch any of that guys videos and actually get anything from it but amazement.. I cannot understand what he is actually doing

Have you watched his video on www.basslobster.com? I found it very helpful.

[Petary791]

I saw Victor down in Cleveland, and as soon as I came home I played Classical Thump. I did it perfect!

That was the only time I did it.